UPCOMING EVENTS

We’re not sure what happened here, but the author apparently got it wrong.

The Silicon Valley telecom start-up Infinera, as we’ve reported before here and here, is one of the bolder local bets made lately by a group of well-known venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

The Sunnyvale company has raised $215 million since 2001. The latest $10 million was indeed just raised, but not from existing investors as the above report said.

Infinera chief executive Jagdeep Singh told us today that the entire round of funding was supplied by a corporate investor that he has chosen not to name for now. [Update: Though we just might have come up with the answer. See below.] It is an entirely new investor, he said. Separately, we spoke with an unnamed existing investor, who said “it is a very significant investor…”…(more)
Infinera, as we reported earlier, is trying to revolutionize how telecom carriers transport data for voice and Internet use through high-speed networks. Until now, carriers have relied on big network builders like Nortel, Lucent and Alcatel. These networks switch data from photons, or units of light, into electrons, and back again — an expensive process involving scores of components and hefty amounts of space.

Infinera says it can do the entire light-to-light conversion on two chips — for less than half the cost. And it has built its own network system around the chips that takes up about one-tenth the space of a conventional one.

Anyway, Singh tells us the above reporter didn’t contact the company. “There seem to be some incorrect reports suggesting it was an insider round,” he said.

Infinera has now announced four customers, which is steady progress from when we last reported about the company.

And Singh says there are “several other announcements we will be making over the remainder of the year, starting with an international carrier we will be announcing in September.” He continued: “We’re hiring here in Sunnyvale to continue to ramp our production capability, the sales team is busy, the team is feeling good overall.”

There’s an old adage in Washington DC about how there are no secrets ever kept in that city of gossip (Woodward-Deepthroat being the exception that made the rule). How about Silicon Valley? Any tipsters out there who can tell us the name of the mysterious Infinera backer?

Update, 8/3, 6am: Didn’t take long for Dan Primack to write in, saying the corporation is based in Colarado, according to reg. filings.

And since we already know that it is a “very significant investor,” there is a very high chance that the investor is Denver-based Qwest Communications. Who else is out there?

Update, 6:50am: If this is true, there’s an interesting connection in Vinod Khosla, of Kleiner Perkins, who is on the board of bothcompanies.

Update, 8:20am: Well, we’re also hearing that it might be Level 3, which is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. (Thanks again to Dan Primack). This might make even more sense, since Level 3 is one of Infinera’s four announced customers.